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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23601184">Purpose, there is</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remustrash/pseuds/Remustrash'>Remustrash</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Remus Lupin's Existential Crises [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Depressing, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Pre-Canon, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Sad, Short, Short One Shot, Sirius Black in Azkaban, or something like it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:09:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>761</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23601184</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remustrash/pseuds/Remustrash</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There were so many things he didn’t want. He didn’t want to be alive, for a start. That was clear enough. He didn’t think he should, either. Nearly everyone else was gone after all, gone without saying goodbye, and he… he didn’t even have someone to say goodbye to before going.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sirius Black/Remus Lupin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Remus Lupin's Existential Crises [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644652</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Purpose, there is</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So... isolation is getting to me. Clearly. It definitely doesn't help my already recurrent existential crises. But at least some writing came out of it!<br/>I imagine this happened in the years before Sirius was discovered to be innocent.<br/>Just a warning: this is sad.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes he couldn’t cry. Other times, he couldn’t do anything but. Most times, the pain was so strong, so physical, that he felt it in each one of his bones. He felt as if someone had grabbed a knife and was taking their time to slowly carve every one of Remus’ mistakes on the skin of his back. It was like reliving his first transformation over and over again: bones readjusting, muscles stretching, skin braking, and he twisted and turned in bed trying to shake the feeling of it, but it clung to his fingertips and refused to let go. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Occasionally, the pain was of an empty sort. He laid in bed (always in bed) and stared at the ceiling for hours on end. The only type of physical pain he could feel came from his stomach, which was also empty, and his bladder, which was too full. But he didn’t get up. Those times, he thought he never would. He stayed there still like a sculpture made out of all the tears he couldn’t cry. His mind was blank, useless and this -oh, this was the worst kind of pain, because it was static, unwavering, and yet permanent, a current travelling through his body until it stuck in his throat and he didn’t know whether he wanted to speak, scream or throw up. And he didn’t know if he wanted to find out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were so many things he didn’t want. He didn’t want to be alive, for a start. That was clear enough. He didn’t think he should, either. Nearly everyone else was gone after all, gone without saying goodbye, and he… he didn’t even have someone to say goodbye to before going. Life wouldn’t miss it. Would death welcome him? He wonders, sometimes, what it would be like, whether he’d be able to leave all the pain behind or if you just had to take it with you. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d been hurting himself lately, looking at old pictures. Short seconds of his life trapped forever in a tiny square. He hated magic photographs; they hurt so much more than muggle ones. If the pictures were static, he wouldn’t have been able to see James laughing with his mouth wide open as he put an arm around Remus’ back. He wouldn’t have had to endure Lily rolling her eyes next to them. Most importantly, he wouldn’t have caught the smirk on Sirius’ lips as he threw a look at him, or his own eyes returning the playful gesture. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he found the muggle ones, tucked into the pages of one of those odd, unknown gay romantic novels he used to read in the shadows when he was in his twenties, and his heart broke. He’d been wrong. These were so much worse. He took the pictures between his fingers and walked to the window to see them better. In the first one, Sirius was smiling, broadly and wickedly, still covering himself with a hand but acting as if he hadn’t placed it there on purpose. In the second one, though, he was fully naked, his arms over his head and his legs slightly parted as a careless invitation, opened to the camera, to the world, to Remus. And then there was the third one. Remus remembered this moment clearly. He had crawled on top of Sirius with the camera in his hands, straddled his hips and taken a picture of Sirius from above. Sirius had looked at the lens, at him, from behind his long black eyelashes and Remus had had an epiphany. A sudden realization that that moment just there was how he wanted to spend the rest of his life: young, healthy, confident, hopeful and so utterly in love. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He threw the pictures on the bed and, ignoring the tears streaming down his face, turned again to the window. He looked outside and thought: what’s the purpose? His love had turned ugly, rotten. It didn’t bring him anything but shame and guilt, for who else could have loved a murderer but a beast? He had the answer, at least to the first question. There was purpose to his life. He owed it to his friends, to his real friends, to devote every last minute of his life to the cause they had died defending. And he owed it to the love he thought he had found, to the pure and unmistakable yearning he had felt, to live his life in pain. Sometimes he pondered, sometimes he thought. Was this punishment for still feeling a love so strong?  </span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>1 comment from you = 1 less existential crisis from me</p></blockquote></div></div>
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